"Hi Lily. Hope your summer went well." James stated with a genuine smile.
Lily stood in the door way for a bit trying to take all these things in at once. She finally decided to make her way to the seat across from James.
"It went very well." She finally spat out. "How about yours?"
James eyes went straight to his shoes. " It was different" He responded.
"Oh." Lily replied thoroughly confused but feeling as though she shouldn't push the subject.
"So maybe we should set down some ground rules now that we will be living with one another" Lily suggested expecting James to complain instantaneously and become his old self.
"Alright" he replied. "Civility?" he suggested.
"What ?" Lily asked caught off guard by his compliance.
"Well." James began. "We haven't really been very civil to one another over the years… and I am sure that was mostly my fault but I am willing to change that is if you are also." He gave her that same genuine smile but she couldn't help but see some sadness within it.
" Of course I am more than willing to be civil James. Lets just let the past be the past." she found herself offering. She couldn't believe that this was happening making amends with a boy she used to not be able to stand. For some reason she couldn't dig up the usual sarcastic persona she had always embodied any time he used to come near.
"Do you have anything else?" James asked.
"Nope." Lily replied totally forgetting any rules she had thought she would set down when first learning James had made head boy.
"Ok." He replied looking back out the window. " That was probably the shortest Heads meeting in Head boy girl history." He said smiling once again.
" Yeah maybe we will surprise everyone and work really well with one another." Lily said with a small giggle.
"It is always fun to prove the general school population wrong." James supplied looking away from the window and back to Lily.
"Something is different about you James" Lily let slip.
James quickly turned his head back to the window. " Is it ok if I take a nap Lily?" He asked. "I am really exhausted."
"Of course. I wanted to read anyways" she replied. Thinking it unwise to point out he had totally ignored her question straight out.
" Thanks lil" James replied stretching out across his chair and quickly dozing off to sleep.
"SO what happened?" MacKenzie drilled Lily later at the feast.
" Nothing happened" Lily responded glancing down at the table to James and his friends. He wasn't touching the food that Sirius continued to load onto his plate and none of them spoke to one another. Something must have been up.
"Lily Evans. Since when do we lie to one another? I know James Potter and Lily Evans aren't in a room alone together without something happening." She said sternly.
"Ok ok." Lily replied. "Nothing happened because something has changed about James." She whispered.
"Changed like how. He's sweeter now isn't he? Oh man I knew one day he would grow up and you two would get together and have little Lily's and little Potter's and they would be SUPER CHILDREN that end up saving the world from near destruction. I knew all that fighting was just sexual tension. I knew it I knew it."
"KENZIE." Lily said knocking her out of her trance with a small splash of pumpkin juice. "Back to earth please. I have no idea where that all came from and frankly I think you need to see a doctor or something but that was not even close to what I was talking about." She stated. " He does seem sweeter but it seems more like he's sad about something."
"Sad?"
" Yes sad" Lily replied rolling her eyes.
"What does James have to be sad about ?" Kenzie asked.
"Good question but I swear he was basically crying on the train before I walked into the compartment." Lily replied. " You are in the wizard circle and you haven't heard anything ? Lily asked.
"Nah I haven't heard a thing then again I have been in Egypt this whole summer so its not like I have been in the loop."
"Oh."
"But I can owl my mum tonight and see if she knows anything."
"Thanks Kenz." Lily replied.
" I am sure its nothing too horrid Lily. Don't stress it." Kenzie supplied.
"You didn't see him Kenz I am sure it was something horrid. Something has completely changed James Potter." She said staring back down to the table. James was now nowhere to be found.